Thursday, August 21, 2008

I'm getting myself and Evan, of course, ready for Japanese kindergarten in a couple weeks. I think Evan is totally ready for more activities and such, cause almost daily he'll whine to me, "Mommy, I need something else I can do!" I give him activities, but he's done and wants to move on in 10 mins. Anyway, I'm worried that the school is going to frown upon me as a mom if I send Evan to school with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. As much as he likes them, they are nothing compared to the bento boxes (Japanese lunch boxes) that I've seen in the past. I've been to the store to find a lunch box for Evan and there's a gazillion little gadgets and doodads and thing-a-ma-bobs to make your kid's rice balls look like Hello Kitty or cut a tiny wiener into a crab or making special hole punched seaweed to make Winnie the Pooh's face out of your carrots! Its insane how much time and effort these moms will put into making their kids meals look kawaii. more power to ya.Although, I'm not about to invest in Doremon cupcake papers, I do want to at least provide Evan with something good to eat for lunch that's somewhat Japanese. Plus, I don't think Evan will care about cute food. Knowing him, he'll probably throw his backpack around enough that he'll find a bento full of garbled funny faces at lunchtime. So, online I go, and I find this site. JustBento.com. I love how nicely everything is photographed. I haven't tried the recipes yet, but you can be sure I'm going to be trying them out soon!

Monday, August 04, 2008

This is what I've been looking forward to about living in Japan... attending local festivities! Although this wasn't how I imagined it...

The base opened up its gates to the locals to celebrate Bon Odori on it's grounds. Usually they'd have to be sponsored to get on base. Well, there were booths of food and stuff for sale by locals, but then there's a few stalls that were selling pizza and hot dogs and Doritos and Lays and military paraphernalia and even Outback Steakhouse was there. And it wasn't just Americans selling American food. The Japanese were making fusion food. Like falafel dog. Think, hot dog on a stick wrapped in a falafel. I guess it would be good. And there was a stand from another of base restaurant selling Döner kebab. It was very yummy, but what did it have to do with a Japanese festival?

Well, despite the swellering heat and humidity and strange juxtaposition of hot dogs and kimonos, it was fun. We had way too many shaved ice just to keep cool. After a couple hours I was ready to take the kids home to put them to nap so I could nap! We woke up in time to eat dinner and go see the fireworks. There must have been firework shows all around base cause we were hearing them before the show on base would start. But then again it could have been another freak thunderstorm like the Fourth of July had.

I forgot to grab the camera, so you'll have to imagine it was a really good show. They were firing them off from two different locations, syncronized to music, that again wasn't all Japanese music.

It was nice to have the festival come to us on base, but I think I'm gonna have to do a little more research to find the authentic festivals I'm hoping to experience while we're in Japan.